Heat Waves: Human Bodies Not Made For Extreme Heat, Kidney And Heart Failure, Brain Damage. Climate change is driving heat waves worldwide and it has become extreme in recent years. This has once again highlighted human bodies and how much heat they can withstand and survive. Most households cannot afford air conditioning to get through extremely high temperatures and governments are trying to find effective solutions.
Scientists are concerned that widespread heat waves could impact a region without affecting the cooling system and cause a mass death event. Research shows that the survival rate of humans in the heat is very low.
Jennifer Vanos, an associate professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, says humans can only sweat so much and older people even less.
She highlighted that in the United States, heat deaths should be 100 percent preventable, and there should be air conditioning, but in some parts of the world that doesn’t exist.
In the last decade, the world’s population is exposed to a deadly combination of heat and humidity for at least 20 days each year. This is likely to increase to nearly half by 2100 even with drastic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.
Human Bodies Can’t Lose Heat Fast Enough
Scientists say humans have a constant body temperature of around 37°C (98°F), where there’s continuous balance between heat loss and heat gain. Liz Hanna, a former public health researcher at the Australian National University, said organs and enzymes can shut down when the core temperature gets too hot. She highlighted that extreme heat can lead to major kidney and heart problems, as well as brain damage.
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The human body works to maintain its core temperature in hot environments by sweating. The sweat evaporates into the air, sucks heat from the skin and cools the body down. But humidity cripples this cooling method.
This is because when its humid there’s already a lot of water vapor in the air, and sweat can’t evaporate as quickly. Thus, sweating doesn’t cool the body down.
Heat Tolerance Can Change
Hanna says people’s heat tolerance can change over time as one’s body can become more acclimatized to heat with exposure. She explained that people who are more acclimatized to heat sweat more, and their sweat is more diluted – this protects the body from dehydration, heart and kidney problems.
The expert said residents of cooler places are less acclimatized to the heat, and it can be deadly during heat waves.
Hanna added that there are limits to acclimatization as humans won’t be able to evolve past the conditions that climate change is likely to bring shortly.
